Man, life has been too busy and I still haven't posted my race report or updated my blog in any way. Today I am going to cut and paste the report I posted on Daily Mile. If you follow me there, you will have already read this. :)
We arrived at the race start to 1C temps and huge snowflakes. Luckily, the snow stopped by the time the race started though and there was just a light drizzle most of the time that I barely noticed. Erik left for his 10km at 8 am and started off looking strong. I wish I could have watched him cross the finish line.
I started my race at 8:15, positioning myself near the back because I knew this race has mostly super fast runners and I didn't want to get in the way. However, I found it extremely difficult to keep a slow pace because, even when I was running a 10 min mile, the pack was pulling away from me quickly. I could see it was going to be hard to be disciplined. :)
My heart rate was too high for most of the race but I gave up trying to keep it down because, well, because it's a race, dammit and you're supposed to run fast! So much for my plan.
I'm not sure why my HR was so high actually - I did this run a few weeks ago with a much lower HR - but I'm going to put it down to a combination of recovering from illness, excitement, and possibly from the 2 shots of ventolin I took just before the race.
Below are my splits (FYI 6:15/km = 10 min mile) My goal was 6:30 for first 2-3 km, then 6:15-6:20 for the rest, with 6:00 or faster for last 3 km. Also my HR goal was zone 2 (150-159) to which I failed miserably. Most of the time I was running in Zone 3. My average HR was 167 and my max was 184. LOL. Clearly I suck at self discipline.
6:06
6:18
6:07
6:26
6:24
6:36
6:38
6:29
6:31 (start of hill)
6:29 (climbing)
6:31(water stop 30 seconds)
6:05
6:23
6:19
6:33
6:30
6:13
6:13
6:02
6:13
5:55 (100 metres)
Overall pace was 6:20/km (10:11 min mile)
And if my Math is correct, it's a negative split by a couple minutes, not counting the last 100m...
I really pushed for the last 3 km and was near dying at the very end, but nothing hurt while I was running. After the race, my legs/shins were sore so I stretched as much as I could while we waited for Erik to get all his prizes. :D I was really wishing I had brought ice with me but I iced as soon as I got home and hopefully, my massage tomorrow will get me back to normal asap. :)
I managed to track down Daily Milers John A. and Marvinlightfoot to say hello. Cool to finally meet online friends. :) Both of my daughters came down to cheer me on too so that was really, really nice.
So all in all, I'm really happy. I beat my goal time of 2:15 and my fueling strategy, including stopping to refill my bottle at the 12 km mark, worked really well. I guess time will tell if I have done any damage to my legs from my silliness. :)
PS this was an 11 minute PR from my first half marathon in Victoria last October. :)
We arrived at the race start to 1C temps and huge snowflakes. Luckily, the snow stopped by the time the race started though and there was just a light drizzle most of the time that I barely noticed. Erik left for his 10km at 8 am and started off looking strong. I wish I could have watched him cross the finish line.
I started my race at 8:15, positioning myself near the back because I knew this race has mostly super fast runners and I didn't want to get in the way. However, I found it extremely difficult to keep a slow pace because, even when I was running a 10 min mile, the pack was pulling away from me quickly. I could see it was going to be hard to be disciplined. :)
My heart rate was too high for most of the race but I gave up trying to keep it down because, well, because it's a race, dammit and you're supposed to run fast! So much for my plan.
I'm not sure why my HR was so high actually - I did this run a few weeks ago with a much lower HR - but I'm going to put it down to a combination of recovering from illness, excitement, and possibly from the 2 shots of ventolin I took just before the race.
Below are my splits (FYI 6:15/km = 10 min mile) My goal was 6:30 for first 2-3 km, then 6:15-6:20 for the rest, with 6:00 or faster for last 3 km. Also my HR goal was zone 2 (150-159) to which I failed miserably. Most of the time I was running in Zone 3. My average HR was 167 and my max was 184. LOL. Clearly I suck at self discipline.
6:06
6:18
6:07
6:26
6:24
6:36
6:38
6:29
6:31 (start of hill)
6:29 (climbing)
6:31(water stop 30 seconds)
6:05
6:23
6:19
6:33
6:30
6:13
6:13
6:02
6:13
5:55 (100 metres)
Overall pace was 6:20/km (10:11 min mile)
And if my Math is correct, it's a negative split by a couple minutes, not counting the last 100m...
I really pushed for the last 3 km and was near dying at the very end, but nothing hurt while I was running. After the race, my legs/shins were sore so I stretched as much as I could while we waited for Erik to get all his prizes. :D I was really wishing I had brought ice with me but I iced as soon as I got home and hopefully, my massage tomorrow will get me back to normal asap. :)
I managed to track down Daily Milers John A. and Marvinlightfoot to say hello. Cool to finally meet online friends. :) Both of my daughters came down to cheer me on too so that was really, really nice.
So all in all, I'm really happy. I beat my goal time of 2:15 and my fueling strategy, including stopping to refill my bottle at the 12 km mark, worked really well. I guess time will tell if I have done any damage to my legs from my silliness. :)
PS this was an 11 minute PR from my first half marathon in Victoria last October. :)
